P-38 Lightning group build - Are we there yet???

on scene... [View:/themes/fsm/utility/:550:0]

Vance, you've really gone to town on them flaps, it's looking excellent.

Rich your work bench looks a little like mine, complete and utter clutter, keep up the good work.

Finally have some pictures to post, not the best as it's dark and I'm crap at photography,

I've used a bit of artistic license on this as the PE set is for the Hasegawa kit but I wanted to "busy" it up a little. The back panel needs making vertical before I glue it.  I'm pretty pleased with my scratch built seat though.

Cheers...

Ueh know...  As soon as I hit the Post button, I knew that someone was going to say that......

Rich

VanceCrozier

 

Sparrowhyperion:

 

...and best of all a really nice swivel 360 degree hobby vise....

 

 

Quick, somebody call the vise squad!

All--I have to agree with Sparrow.  The Minicraft kit is not the greatest but it has gone together fairly well.  I dressed up the LG doors with some perforated ,5 mm sheet to match photos I had,  Also got the OD on topside.  Here are a couple of photos:

This plane will be Jeanne, a 20th FG with sharkmouths on the nacells.

After 3 hours of futzing around trying to get the boom sections to fit right, I have for now given up on the Minicraft.  Instead, I have opened up my Academy kit.  The one I had planned on selling.  It's as different as night and day.  The parts fit beautifully, the detail is crisp and pretty accurate from what I can see so far.  The Design and a LOT more logical and I am not going to have to waste hours just getting the booms to fit together correctly.  So it's going to be the Academy and the Revell first and if I am feeling masochistic enough, the Minicraft when I am done with the other two, if I have the time.

Rich

 Apologies for not posting in a while . Had a big order come in at work , long days, as well as a few other life snags during January that made build/computer time at a premium. Some days as little as half an hour or none at all.  Also got around to finishing up my 1/48 Witchcraft Lib, which turned out great .

 Have been keeping an eye on the goings on here . Everyones putting out some awesome work. Vance, I really like the dropped fowler flaps. Neat stuff. I'll have to refer back to that when I get around to building the Revell P-38J in my stash. I would also like to drop the flaps next time I build a Revellogram  1/48 Liberator( also with fowler flaps. 

 I have made some forward progress on my Acadamy P-38F, and since things here in my little corner have settled down , should be able to pick up some steam with this build. Here's pics.

Thinned down the edges of the radiator openings and other assorted scoops.

Ended up using a fine brass screen for the radiators , then enclosed inside with scraps of sheet plastic. 

Made a backstop to help contain the weight going into the nose . Then cut and stacked slabs of lead sheet with the booms and tail plane mocked up with tape. 

The lead sheet is scraps from the vent stack boots roofers use . It's wonderful how it can be flattened, rolled folded, cut, and shaped to all kinds  of weighting applications. Came in handy keeping the nose down on a big Liberator. You can fit slivers of this stuff in all kinds of places.

Drilled out cooler inlets and felt they weren't deep enough so I added some bits of plastic and re drilled before mounting screen.

Spruced up the main bays with some scratched detail and replaced the coolant pipes with solder when the kit parts didn't fit as well as I liked. Then some weathering with washes and pigment powders. They will get a little more weathering after paint .

Gave the sills, seat , floor a dusting of pigments . 

Next up is to busy up the nose gear bay and attach the booms and tail. More pics soon.

Howard.

Hoooray!!! Lightnings everywhere. Great to see all the progress. I used solder for the coolant pipes in the main gear bays too. If I read correctly, Academy includes the pipes in their kit? Wanted to try the big Trumpy kit but that's out of my price range these days. Maybe my next LIghtning will be the Academy kit.

Tony

Spike190 - that cockpit look absolutely fabulous Mike, the seat is scratchbuilt? Nice job, looks like a duplicate of the resin one I picked up.

Clebode - Lots of progress there now, I like the perforated detail on the gear doors, I've been thinking about doing that with mine as well once I start adding the actuators. It's just more styrene and time right? Looking forward to the double shark's teeth.

Sparrow - by all means go to work on the Academy, you may pick up some details & methods that you can transfer to the Minicraft kit - you never know. Clebode may be able to pass on some tips from his build as well.

daddy1 - he's back! Glad you're enjoying my flapping about!  Good work with the brass screen. What's everybody using for that? I never was able to track down anything suitable. Nice tip with the lead sheet, fits slim spaces, and it wouldn't roll around like a fishing weigh or BB, etc. Haha - look at all that green putty! The P38 demands a little putty doesn't it? Solder for the plumbing… that would have been easier to bend than the paperclips I used - have to remember that next time I go nuts ion a model like this.

A little progress last night. I got looking at the area I built up for the inner set of flaps & decided I should do the same for the outer set. Cut some more "L" section styrene, will drill out some lightening holes tonight. Also gave the main gear bays a first coat of paint. (I've gone zinc-chromate, hoping I'm good with that!) Now that I'm dealing with a paint brush in there, I'm wishing I had looked at a different way of mounting the landing gear, pretty tight in some corners.

VanceCrozier

~gasp~ we're on page 2?? Better fix that!

Superchargers hit with a coat of Humbrol red-brown, drybrushed silver & light wash of black, my recipe for burnt metal on exhausts. (thoughts?) I think after I install they will get some more soot weathering, should blend alright.

 

Nice looking turbos. Got to thinking about it and wanted to share my technique to get all the different colors one often sees in exhaust pipes and such.

 The first pic is off a B-17 where I used chrome Bare Metal Foil to cover the turbos, then built up washes of Testors rust mixed with Model Master  Jet Exhaust ,finished with a dry brush of Steel. The chrome base gives a deep metal shine that continues to show through enough to look like rolled steel.

 The following pics show step by step using Model Master chrome silver as a base coat , then successive washes of water based air brushed paints. Just happens to be what I had on hand, but one could use about anything water based . I find my kids water color paint very effective and easy to use also.

The first wash is blue ,to this I added a little red to get the purple tones, then added yellow to the wash to get the straw  color tones, finally adding a touch of brown to the mix to start the rusting process. Allow each wash to dry before the next.

 I then dry brush with Testors rust  followed with a wash of black then a  light dry brushing of MM jet exhaust ,finishing up with an even lighter dry brush of MM steel to pick out the highlights. 

Can't wait to try this adding a dusting of pastel and pigments to the rust effect. 

  Howard

Vance-   Yes they do use the putty . Thankfully, in my mockup to weight the nose, It doesn't seem like I'll have too much alignment issues and the roots where the booms mount to the wing fit well , but will still need their share of green stuff. 

BTW- the lead boots are pretty inexpensive at any home building store and one boot would go a very long way . Another source would be a roofing contractor to see if they had any cut off scraps. You should see how much it took to get the Revellogram B-24 to sit on its nose wheel. This Lightning was a cakewalk. 

The Academy kit does include the plumbing in the main bays, but it didn't fit around the struts to my liking . A bit tight. I tried copper wire , but  that was too stiff to make the bends I wanted. Went to Radio Shack and picked up some .063 inch solder. This stuff is also great for making car headers , etc. Doesn't need painting if you want  a bare metal look, comes in various sizes, bends and forms easily. Handy item.

Howard 

Hmmm, my office is parked right next door to a door & window supplier, I bet they have scrap flashing around that could do the same thing... And I see me doing more of this crazy scratchbuilding stuff in the future, probably worthwhile grabbing a spool of that solder.

hey.. if your headed to the Shack,,, another goodie I discovered there..

Lots of fellow builders say they use "fuse" wire to make wiring, tubing etc.. I went to the Shack to find some.. they looked at me funny...  but I did find.. armature winding wire.. came in a 3 pack, 3 differant colors, 3 differant sizes..fairly cheap to... !!!

works great !!

Sparrow & daddy1:  I expect your boom alignments to go very well.  I finished the F5 a couple weeks ago and the boom alignment was (nearly) perfect.  As I attached the booms, I noticed that the rear stabilizer fit between the two rudders like a glove... no squeezing or spreading.  There is some body work to be done where the booms attach to the main wing between the rear of the wing and the radiators.  Academy has done a very good job with a difficult airframe.  Rick.

Thanks Vance I'm glad you like it, heres a picture of the seat before I painted it up.

I didn't intend to build one as I had a brass PE seat but that didn't work out very well.

Hugh thats some nice detail on the gear doors. Mines also going to have shark mouths on the nacelles.

daddy1 excellent work opening all those vents etc but your just giving me extra work to do !! They look much better, nice tip about the nose weight, something I've not even considered yet.

Cheers...

Awesome looking work, guys!

daddy1, nice detail work.

Hi vance ,

Unfortunately I will have to withdraw from the P-38 GB ;

Some family health issue's have come up .

Good luck to everyone else with their builds .

                                   John .

Sorry to hear that John, best wishes to all involved buddy. Feel free to lurk & harass the gang as you please!

Some other goodies at Radio Shack useful are some of the tiny resistors, capacitors, and other little electronic  bits can be used for various scale components. Even LEDs, pea lamps, if your into lighting things up. The fuse wire was mentioned. The shrink tubing makes great roll cage padding if your building a race car. A good modeler has always got the mind open to any thing that will "do the trick" in scale . There's several good tools in the makeup/beauty dept at many stores. I'm even tempted to try some of the various shades of make up and eye shadow as weathering pigments. Used the grass out of my kids Easter basket to get strips for belts and harnesses. Old school scratch building.

Got some current pics to share. I still need to jazz up the nose gear well, but couldn't wait to get the booms and tail plane on. Makes it look like a Lightning. Ol' Kelly Johnson sure knew his stuff. Designed some beautiful aircraft and always on the cutting edge.

The left boom needed a touch of spread on the outside under the wing, so I glued a shim in place. Still needed a good dose of putty . Seems par for the coarse with all the Lightning kits. Academy did do a good job with tricky airframe. The fit really isn't all that bad 

Check out my favorite putty tool.  A cutical tool by Revlon . Works great.

 Once I get the nose gear bay handled and the latest seams sanded and re-scribed , I'll be ready to mask and start painting. 

BTW- Anyone know if I should fill in the outer wing fuel filler caps on a F,G, or H model Lightning. When did they first appear?

Howard

Yes remove the filler caps. Later J models is when it started but they were added to earlier J's in the field. The tank was the leading edge of the wing so it was not to hard a change to make. Any picture of a P-38 and you see a " + " symbol next to the aircraft data that mean it has the wing tanks installed. On OD/NG it was white and on natural metal it was black.

Also those bumps under the wings next to where the holes for the pylons are should not be there. Those are full boost pumps and they didn't come out until the J-25 or L model if I remember right.

Mike

Mike

Excellant work guys !!

Wow, Howard just came out of nowhere - looking good buddy! OK, weekend update time. (And if Manny is lurking, yes, it came at the expense of the Horten project!).

Drumroll.... closed up the fuselage & mated the booms to the wing section. I taped the forward gear in place & added some glass, just to make myself think I've made even more progress! At this point my wife said "oh, it is an airplane..." Yes, it has been a big pile of plastic that long, or so it seems.  The right boom kept wanting to push to the outboard side, even with me scraping down the crown that happens when joining the two halves of the boom. I think it may have been the two alignment tabs, so I opened up the slots that they alig with, it helped some. Once the glue hit I did indeed get a gap at the join, CA should be enough to fill it though.

Ailerons trimmed out. The engraved lines matched up pretty well top-to-bottom, I managed to let my scriber slip & gouge out a couple of spots near the wing tip, will need to do a little first aid there. Trying to decide if I should bother thinning the plastic any where the ailerons will hide most of it again anyway.

Using some scrap sprue to fill in the gap in the ailerons, sanding it down to give me just a little separation from the wing when I glue it back in place. Safe to assume the "hidden" portion would be the same colour as the wing & aileron, but scraped up a little?

Oh, a little out of order, added some more interior detail to the outer flap areas. After test-fitting again I decided that there would be enough visible to make it worthwhile.

Oh yeah, added a blanking wall to the back of the nose gear bay. Anybody building the Revell kit will know... the "roof" of this bay is actually split between front & back, and those sections don't come together until you close up the top & bottom fuselage halves. So, I'm not sure how much detail is going in there, I may be able to add a length or two of hose/tubing to busy it up.

To quote Starbuck from BG "Oh Frak!"  My Daughter, while trying to help me out, managed to knock over the cockpit assembly on my R/M 1/48 J bird.  In the process, the control yoke snapped off and the heating vent monster got it.  I will NEVER understand why they put heating vents in the middle of the floors in mobile homes...  I ordered one from Revell though.  I don't suppose anyone here has a spare floating around?  I am not sure how long Revell is going to take to get a new one here.  Until then I will continue work on my Academy kit and I am thinking of also doing my big R/M 1/32 bird.

Rich

Rich,  Your rescue comes from 40 years ago.  I have a lightning from my childhood that is junk.  I just popped out the whole cockpit.  I'll send it right out.  PM me your address, my pleasure.  Rick

Here's a couple of WIP images of my Academy kit in progress.  The main assembly for both booms and the main wing are complete along with the inner cockpit.

Here are a couple of closer shots.

I know they aren't a masterpiece, but considering my limitations, I am happy with them so far.  I will probably complete assembly tonight or tomorrow and them it's time to paint.   I wish the Revell kit was cooperating more like this one is. :)

Rich

Nice progress Vance, how long before you start spraying paint on her?

Rich you've moved on a good pace, looking good so far.

I've made a little progress and will post a few pics asap, I'm pretty slow at this model building malarkey so bare with me

Cheers...

Got myself some Olive Drab and Neutral Grey on order today. 

Got a few questions,

Should I fill the outer wing fuel filler caps? P 38f

Wheel wells, Neutral Grey?

On the Academy kit should the Gunsight on the edge of the cockpit IP cover have a 'glass sight' added? Forgive my ignorance, the parts very basic and I wondered if I could spruce it up a little.

Thanks guys.

Spike190

Got myself some Olive Drab and Neutral Grey on order today. 

Got a few questions,

Should I fill the outer wing fuel filler caps? P 38f

Wheel wells, Neutral Grey?

On the Academy kit should the Gunsight on the edge of the cockpit IP cover have a 'glass sight' added? Forgive my ignorance, the parts very basic and I wondered if I could spruce it up a little.

Thanks guys.

Outer fuel filler caps - I think that's a yes to filling them, take a look over the last page or 2, someone else has an answer posted for sure. I think you are looking for grey wells on an F. Glass sight to the gunsight should be a yes as well from what I have seen in my references. My build - I want to get the flaps shaped up properly, and the gun bay covers prepped, then I should be able to start laying down the black paint. Looking forward to it!!

Thanks Vance thats a great help.

Cheers...

Spike--I have concluded the wells are NM.  I have used Alclad Dull Aluminum.  Here is a photo of a restored P-38 J main gear wells.